Temple- Temple (Guerssen Mento19CD)

Temple was released in 1976 on the German Pyramid Label and featured Zeus B Held from Birth Control on keyboards, Otto Bretnacher (drums), Heinz Kramer (guitar), Joachim Weiss (bass), Pauline Fund (percussion, vocals), Poseidon (vocal), and Rolf Foeller (guitar). This label released a lot of electronic-kraut strange stuff but this is more rocking. This is a 24 bit remaster from the original tapes so it should sound better than ever.  The albums five tracks start with the strange rocker, Heathen. The vocal is almost spoken word and with an uptempo rhythm. Strange keyboards are all over and then it goes into a sort of surf rock piece at 2mins to return to the weirdness. Leaves are Falling/Black Light is next and is a proto-goth sort of feel to it. When it slows down there is a nice floating organ with some strange synth sounds and a female vocal. This mellow section with some guitar, one main melodic line and the other reverberating continues for some time and then the mellotron fills the gap. Trippy. Age of Ages is a more happy track but short and features Pauline on vocals. Ship on Fire brings back the energy for the opening track with the same style of spoken word like vocal and a cool driving Hawkwind like groove.  I really like the mini-moog solo on this track while the mechanical heavey guitar and bass driven riff just drives things forward. Very cool track and you can hear it below. Crazy Hat/Kingdom of Gabriel ends this interesting artifact from the 70s. This starts slowly with mainly keyboards, guitar and female vocal but at 3mins it changes very suddenly with an almost punky vibe to it as they kick into Kingdom of Gabriel. Note, this was previously rereleased in 1997 on the Psi-Fi label out of the UK but this is the first vinyl rerelease ever. Check it out.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/481742-Temple-7

http://www.guerssen.com